October 30 2023

The Big Issue

The Big Issue - A Hand Up, Not a Hand Out

The Big Issue1 min read
Uncertain Path
The Dark Hedges became globally famous after taking a starring role in TV phenomenon Game of Thrones. The avenue of beech trees in County Antrim became the Kingsroad of Westeros. Thousands of visitors have made this a must-see Northern Irish destinat
The Big Issue9 min read
The Dispatch
Last week the Renters Reform Bill resurfaced in parliament after The Big Issue’s End Housing Insecurity Now campaign called on the government to act on their promise to protect renters. The return to the Commons should have been a sign of much-needed
The Big Issue3 min read
If Labour Want To Make History, They Must Also Learn From It
The results of the recent by-elections in Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire were spectacular. Sweeping away huge Tory majorities in what ought to have been safe Conservative seats, Labour broke electoral records and put a spring in the step of its activi
The Big Issue1 min readInternet & Web
The Big Issue
FOUNDERS John Bird and Gordon RoddickGROUP CHAIR Nigel KershawGROUP CEO Paul ChealBUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MD Russell Blackman EDITORIAL & PRODUCTION Editor Paul McNameeArt director Mark NeilDeputy editor Steven MacKenzieDigital editor Ryan ButcherDepu
The Big Issue3 min readPoverty & Homelessness
Editor’s Letter
There is a generalised feeling of being stuck. It is all around us, almost tangible, like we’re fixed in amber, waiting to be removed and reanimated. We’re on pause until we discover if the current moment will decide whether what comes next is good o
The Big Issue3 min read
Letters
The Big Issue, 2nd floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow G2 1HW letters@bigissue.com @bigissue /bigissueUK @bigissueuk @thebigissue How lovely to read in My Pitch [Issue 1586, 16 October], the experience of Rebeca. Not dealt the best deal in life b
The Big Issue4 min read
Bird’s Words
At last the government has finally, eventually, completely, firmly, listened to the pleadings of private landlords to stop the repeal of Section 21 in its tracks – dressing this up as a postponement. Since 2019, when it first entered the magical worl
The Big Issue7 min readIntelligence (AI) & Semantics
Duran Duran And Their Decades-long Path To Positivity
It’s 1981, and for large portions of the UK, a time of frustration and anger. Austerity measures have hollowed out communities. Trust in the police is low, unemployment is high. It’s in this febrile atmosphere that The Specials’ protest masterpiece G
The Big Issue4 min read
Is Leeds The Uk’s Worst-connected City?
Leeds is the largest city in western Europe without a tube or tram, the largest in the UK with only one train station, and has had transport project after transport project cancelled. The city has seen plans for a new transit system binned practicall
The Big Issue3 min read
No Staff, No Trains, And Queues Out The Door. A Day At The North’s Rail Hub
It’s early October and a torrent of people are leaving Manchester Piccadilly station. There’s a Man Utd match, a large Irish funeral and Saturday shopping to be done. By late lunch, the board is lit up with delays and around a dozen trains have been
The Big Issue6 min read
‘People Are Leaving Prison And They’re Being Given A Tent’
In the opening episode of Time, Jodie Whittaker’s character Orla O’Riordan loses everything when she is sent to prison. Her home, her children, her freedom and her future, all gone. Her crime? Being poor during a cost of living crisis and, in despera
The Big Issue6 min read
Naomi Klein
I was a troubled teenager – 16 wasn’t my worst year, but it wasn’t my best. I was partying a lot. And I wasn’t in a good space with my parents. I was pretty erratic in school – I had certain subjects that I really loved and others that I totally gho
The Big Issue4 min read
The Real Reason Your Train Was Cancelled
Picture this: you’re on your way home from a long day at work, waiting for your train in a draughty station. The minutes pass like hours as the delay on the board extends. After what feels like an eternity, the dreaded message appears on the screen:
The Big Issue1 min readCrime & Violence
Koestler Arts: In Case Of Emergency Exhibition
The UK’s best-known prison arts charity, Koestler Arts, have been championing and platforming artwork from within the criminal justice system for more than 60 years. Their 16th annual London exhibition at the Southbank Centre is curated by TS Eliot P
The Big Issue3 min read
Books
Many have tried to return to Hill House, the site of Shirley Jackson’s most chilling novel The Haunting of Hill House. In film and TV, directors and their set designers have attempted to conjure Hill House into existence, but the sentient house that
The Big Issue3 min read
How I created the Black British Book Festival
In the vibrant heart of Birmingham, where culture and literature intertwine, my journey began – a journey that brought me to the forefront of the UK publishing scene and led me to champion the Black British Book Festival. I am Selina Brown, and I hop
The Big Issue3 min read
Film
The holy trinity of modern romantic comedies is the much-loved informal trilogy of When Harry Met Sally... (1989), Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You’ve Got Mail (1998). The incandescent onscreen presence of Meg Ryan, combined with the wit of late w
The Big Issue4 min read
Grant Morrison ‘LUDA’S ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE ME’
“It’s an old, old story: here comes your replacement,” says writer Grant Morrison of Luda, their gossipy, Faustian fairy-tale of pantomime dame Luci LaBang and her titular enigmatic protege. “They’re gonna charm you and flatter you until the point wh
The Big Issue3 min readForeign Language Studies
Society
Every now and then, a story will appear in the media about regional accents disappearing. About how everyone in the north of England will eventually sound the same, or maybe even how they will all start to sound like people from the South. How accent
The Big Issue4 min read
Music
The world of classical music can be inaccessible. Instruments are difficult to learn, lessons are expensive, and it is arguably less immediate than pop or rock. But cellist, composer and singer Abel Selaocoe welcomes even the most cynical audiences w
The Big Issue3 min read
Lucy Sweet Is On The Verge
When you’ve been married for 150 years like me, dating shows can be tiresome. I still haven’t recovered from the torpor of the last series of Love Island. Once you’ve seen one girl in an upside-down bikini snogging a recruitment consultant who looks
The Big Issue3 min read
My Pitch
MARIAN HENDREA, 47 I started selling The Big Issue in August 2014. I just started with the badge and everything was quickly quite normal after that. I am disabled so it is difficult for me to find a job but The Big Issue allows me to work and earn m
The Big Issue2 min read
Puzzles
1.He, an old railway worker, now steers the ship (8)5. Leave out the captain (4)8. One who has recently joined the union (5-3)9. Boy will hold ring before long (4)11. Facial characteristic to set aside? (7)13. Back a thousand to prepare again (5)14.
The Big Issue3 min read
A Six-step Journey To More Sustainable Travel
Days are darkening as winter looms. A cost of living crisis is biting Britain hard, while around the world divisions are deepening. At this time of year it’s natural for thoughts to turn to escape, whether that’s planning a trip to sunnier climes o
The Big Issue5 min read
The Future Of Our Lonely Planet
Fifty years ago, a book changed the world. It changed the way we navigated places and experienced different cultures. And it all came about by accident. In October 1973, the first in what would become the Lonely Planet imprint was published. The prev
The Big Issue3 min read
Travel On A Budget And Live Like A Local: Unpacking ‘Workaway’ Experiences
If someone had told me a year ago I would be building huts in the jungle, swimming with sea turtles in the Caribbean and learning craft and cuisine from an Indigenous gender nonconforming community while not paying a single penny, I wouldn’t have bel
The Big Issue2 min read
Here’s How You Can Get Free Accommodation Around The World
WWOOFing (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) connects volunteers with farms. Pick a host and learn the importance of ancient ways of growing organic foods, helping with the land, learning what it means to be sustainable or even taking care of
The Big Issue8 min read
To Save Our Forests, We Must Understand Them, From The Amazon To The Midlands
The tourism industry is grappling with an existential question: how can it continue in the face of damaging over-tourism and the threat of climate change? Organisations from places as diverse as the Brazilian Amazon and the National Forest in the UK
The Big Issue3 min read
Humanity Is Under Threat. The Tourist Industry Has To Step Up
Over the summer, many of the UK’s favourite holiday destinations were affected by extreme heat, with global warming fuelling heatwaves and wildfires in Greece, Turkey, Italy, Spain and Portugal. After the hottest summer on record, the tourism industr
The Big Issue3 min read
The ‘Queenagers’ Breathing Life Into The Travel Industry
Caroline Blakeney had only been back home a week after the trip of a lifetime to Egypt before she made a booking to go to India. The 62-year-old hadn’t been abroad for 23 years before she took the flight to Cairo, now there’s no holding her back. “It
The Big Issue3 min read
The Activists Fighting Back Against Landowners
It’s been a strange road for Right to Roam. It was after the Second World War that the government first proposed complete access to England’s countryside to complement the newly formed NHS. It was rejected by landowners in the House of Lords who deem
The Big Issue4 min read
How Tourism Can Bring Endangered Languages Back From The Brink
It’s July and I’m singing with strangers. I can’t speak the language. I can, at least, recognise some of the voices. The Bostonian who flew thousands of miles to be here, voice husky from cigarette smoke. The German lady who fell in love with Ireland
The Big Issue5 min read
The New Space Revolution
“Imagine if you had just spent six months off planet Earth,” Chris Hadfield begins. “Your spaceship undocks from the space station and then comes plummeting through the atmosphere, exerting tremendous forces on your body. The parachute opens and you

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